Thomas was born with a severe to profound hearing loss in his right ear. Thank God for newborn hearing screenings. At 6 months, he was diagnosed with EVA/LVAS and began to lose his hearing in his left ear. The hearing in his left ear has fluctuated since diagnosis, but he has a wonderful team of specialists helping him to listen and speak. This is his story -- as told by his mom, one of his biggest fans.

CI Activation

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Fall is my favorite time of year. We have had an especially fun time with football, airplanes, Halloween and now about the enjoy a relaxed Thanksgiving week.

Before I begin though, I'm most excited about getting our JTC summer camp application done and submitted. Our SLP/cert AVT, Ms. Becky, is writing a letter of recommendation and we are going back in to get unilateral aided testing on his HA ear next week. So, here is to hoping that we get to spend 3 weeks in LA learning, testing and playing with the Kenny family, other families from around the world, and the wonderful people at the JTC.

Football -- the Texas A&M Aggies, my husband's undergraduate team, is actually playing well this year. It has been a long time since we have been excited to watch a game. We had some good friends over for a game watching day. Thomas had a blast with the "girls" and started working on his football vocabulary. He has known the word 'touchdown' for well over a year now but, we have added other things like 'first down,' 'field goal,' and 'kick off' to our football vocabulary. Here is our little man hanging out during a break in the game with Sidney, Mary Emsley and Katie Grace.

Airplanes -- My husband and his father took the kids to see the air show in late October. Thomas had an amazing day. He got to see the Blue Angels fly and is now totally infatuated with planes and helicopters. It is so much fun to hear something fly over head, even when we are inside the house, and see Thomas point to his ear and identify 'das a airprane' or 'das a hericopter' simply by hearing the difference in the sound. I have got to make an experience book from this outing.

Halloween -- While I'm not a huge Halloween fan, Thomas really got into it this year. We played the game Concentration with Halloween cards that I made as suggested by Ms. Becky. My goodness this kid has a good memory. He learned all of his vocabulary in a week (which is good for him because it used to take him over 3 weeks to learn a new concept). We had a fall festival at preschool and also had a full evening of trick-or-treating. Thomas went as Cat-in-the-Hat and Sidney went as a greek goddess. They both had so much fun and hauled in a lot of candy. It was so great to hear our little man say, "Trick or treat!" and "Thank you!" at every house. His 'thank you' is finally taking better shape...for quite a long time it has come out as 'ah-chew' now we are getting the 't' at the beginning and the hard 'k' at the end.

What a fun fall for our little man. His language continues to grow and sometimes I feel like I'm a walking thesaurus...getting rid of "tired words" and adding new words every day. Our blessings are overwhelming and we have so much to be thankful for this holiday season. Now on to Christmas vocabulary and talk of our Lord.

About Me

I am a stay-at-home mom to two wonderful little kiddos. Sidney is 9, going on 17, and a hearing child. Thomas is a rough and tumble 3-year old that is deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other ear. This blog is for my friends and family to keep up on Thomas' progress, but ultimately it is for Thomas. I want to chronicle how hard he works and all the strides that he makes in his battle to listen and speak.